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U.S.A.
Date: n.d.
Notes: Image Caption: "[Group of women, each in traditional ancestral costume]...." "Front row, left to right: Denmark, Lithuania, Japan, Spain, Poland [middle row, left to right] Austria, Czecho-Slovak, Italy, Belgium, France, Ukrainia, Ireland, Bohemia, [back row, left to right] Chili, Mexico, Greece, America, Belgian peasant, Hungary, Finland, [unidentified]."
Contributed by: Courtesy of the New York Public Library, Digital Gallery

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Italian immigrants
U.S.A.
Date: ca 1905 to 1915
Notes: Title: "Ital'ianki [Italian women]." Subjects: Women -- Clothing & dress Italy." Photo: Prokudin-Gorskii.
Contributed by: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, PPOC

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Montreal, Quebec, canada
Date: Current
Notes: Prior to World War II women in the Southern Italian countryside wore their hair up in a bun, called "il tupe." Both older married women and young unmarried women sported "il tupe." The hair was kept long (sometimes it was trimmed, but it was rarely cut). Back then a local "hair-comber" would come once a week to one's home and do one's hair. First the hair-comber brushed the hair, then she pulled it to the back and did one long braid; after that she pinned the braid up at the back of the head. Wearing "il tupe" was considered very fashionable. In the late 1950s "il tupe" was deemed "old-fashioned" and "prudish." Younger Italian women had their hair cut and permed, but a number of older Italian women resisted. This contributor's grandmother, Nonna Assunta Melfi, refused to have her hair cut after she came to Canada following the death of her husband. Even though her daughters-in-law wanted her to have her hair cut (This way they wouldn't have to do her hair, she could do it herself!), the older woman said, No! She refused to cut her hair or dye it.
Contributed by: Mary Melfi

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